| NAnt  Help  Task Reference  <echo> | v0.92-rc1 | 
[This is preliminary documentation and subject to change.]
Writes a message to the build log or a specified file.
 The message can be specified using the message attribute or as inline content. If neither is included - or the message contains only whitespace - then an empty message will be emitted in the output. 
Macros in the message will be expanded.
 When writing to a file, the level attribute is ignored. 
Note: Since NAnt 0.86, a newline will no longer be implictly added when writing a message to a file.
| Attribute | Type | Description | Required | 
|---|---|---|---|
| append | bool | Determines whether the <echo> task should append to the file, or overwrite it. By default, the file will be overwritten. | False | 
| encoding | Encoding | The encoding to use when writing message to a file. The default is UTF-8 encoding without a Byte Order Mark (BOM). | False | 
| file | file | The file to write the message to. | False | 
| level | Level | The logging level with which the message should be output. The default is Info. | False | 
| message | string | The message to output. | False | 
| failonerror | bool | Determines if task failure stops the build, or is just reported. The default is true. | False | 
| if | bool | If true then the task will be executed; otherwise, skipped. The default is true. | False | 
| unless | bool | Opposite of if. If false then the task will be executed; otherwise, skipped. The default is false. | False | 
| verbose | bool | Determines whether the task should report detailed build log messages. The default is false. | False | 
 Writes a message with level Debug to the build log. 
<echo message="Hello, World!" level="Debug" />
    
      Writes a two-line message to the build log using inline content.
<echo>First line
Second line</echo>
    
       Writes a two-line message to the build log using the message attribute. 
<echo message='First line
Second line</echo>
    
      Writes a message with expanded macro to the build log.
<echo message="Base build directory = ${nant.project.basedir}" />
    
      Functionally equivalent to the previous example.
<echo>Base build directory = ${nant.project.basedir}</echo>
    
      Writes the previous message to a file in the project directory, overwriting the file if it exists.
<echo file="buildmessage.txt">Base build directory = ${nant.project.basedir}</echo>